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Bush and Gore Mix Jokes And Barbs at Smith Dinner

The campaign for president made a rare stop in New York last night, as Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore gave dueling pointed speeches before a white-tie audience that included two people who had, until yesterday, kept a distance from those two presidential candidates: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick A. Lazio.

The setting was the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, the charity fund-raiser sponsored by the Archdiocese of New York, whose invitation proved the impetus to nudge the four players in the two biggest political races in the country -- for president and senator from New York -- to share dinner and a stage last night.

For Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush, it was a rare opportunity, aside from their three debates, to speak from the same stage, albeit under the historical guidelines of these dinners: Speeches should be funny, and not stumpy. But they are allowed to have a political point, and both candidates seemed to approach the evening as another night of competition in their contest.

Mr. Gore offered a few self-deprecating jokes about some things that have caused problems for his candidacy this year. ''This dinner represents a hallowed and important tradition, which I actually did invent,'' he said to shouts of laughter from a crowd that included virtually every major elected official in New York.

And he also offered a few remarks with a sharp political edge, directed at his opponent, who also sat on the stage. ''Al Smith ran on an agenda that was revolutionary for his time,'' Mr. Gore said, referring to the presidential candidate for whom the dinner is named. ''A 45-cent minimum wage. Limiting the work week to six days. Building a bridge to the 1930's. And I must say it's quite a tribute to Governor Smith that Governor Bush has adopted the same agenda.''

Mr. Bush responded with the same mix of jokes and barbs. ''This is an impressive crowd,'' he said. ''The haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.''

But he ended his speech with a long and serious tribute to the late Cardinal John J. O'Connor who, Mr. Bush told the hushed crowd, ''defied all the labels and showed us that sometimes truth is larger than the left and the right.'' And Mr. Bush, who opposes abortion in most cases, made particular mention of Cardinal O'Connor's advocacy of the ''rights of the unborn,'' drawing heavy applause from many of the people in the room. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gore did not applaud.

But for all the unusual focus on presidential politics here, an equally compelling drama yesterday involved two people who were not permitted to speak at the dinner -- Mr. Lazio and Mrs. Clinton, as they responded, in notably different ways, to the presence in their backyards of their party's presidential candidates.

For Mrs. Clinton, the presence of Mr. Gore in New York was an opportunity, and she leapt at the chance to campaign, for the first time since last March, with a politician who polls show is significantly more popular among New Yorkers than she is. With much fanfare, she appeared with Mr. Gore and his running mate, Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut senator, at a labor rally earlier yesterday in Midtown, and thrust herself between them on the stage as she sought to cast the contest in sharply partisan terms.

''I am proud to be on that team because it is the Gore-Lieberman-Clinton team that will keep the prosperity and the progress going in America,'' Mrs. Clinton declared to shouts and cheers. ''We have to get out and make sure our team wins.''

Mr. Gore then picked up the line, noting that there is no ''Gore-Lieberman-Lazio team,'' as he moved to blunt Mr. Lazio's effort in recent days to enlist Democratic Gore supporters to his campaign.

''I want to say it plainly and clearly there is only one candidate for the United States Senate who is part of the Gore-Lieberman team, and that is Hillary Clinton,'' Mr. Gore said.

By contrast, Mr. Lazio and Mr. Bush barely crossed paths today. They held no joint events. When Mr. Lazio appeared at a news conference with Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state, a Democratic Party activist showed up with a life-size cutout of Mr. Bush in an attempt to create the photo opportunity that Mr. Lazio seemed intent on avoiding.

And at the dinner last night, an event where seating charts are perhaps overly scrutinized for political significance, Mr. Lazio sat on the opposite side of the stage from Mr. Bush; even Mrs. Clinton sat closer to the Republican candidate for president than Mr. Lazio did. In contrast to Mrs. Clinton, who eagerly greeted Mr. Gore, Mr. Lazio did not appear to go to any special effort to be photographed greeting Mr. Bush.

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Mr. Lazio and Mr. Bush have not appeared together in New York since July 16. The Republican candidate for Senate has, in his campaign, gone to great lengths to distance himself from Mr. Bush, who Mr. Lazio's aides view as a drag on his own candidacy in New York.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gore last campaigned together on March 20, in Albany, though they have appeared together at other political events, most recently a fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall last month. Part of that is because there has been no real reason for Mr. Gore to come to New York, given his large lead in polls in the state. There is also inevitable tension between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gore as they have each sought, in their own way, to carve a political identity separate from President Clinton.

''I think he is doing exactly what he needs to do,'' Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Gore's sparse schedule in New York. ''He has to concentrate his time and energy on the battleground states.''

Last night was the first time in 12 years that the two major party candidates for president had attended the dinner, and as such, it made for as eloquent an entrance into national politics as the newly installed archbishop, Edward M. Egan, could have hoped for. The dinner, in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, was oversold, with attendees at the affair drawn by the prospect of seeing, presumably, the next president of the United States.

These dinners have more than once provided a forum for presidential sparring, though the last time both presidential candidates attended one of these dinners was in 1988, when Mr. Bush's father, then vice president, and Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic candidate for president, shared a stage with Cardinal O'Connor.

President Clinton never attended one. He did not attend last night's dinner, but was instead pressed once again into the service of his wife's race for Senate, this time raising $75,000 for her campaign at a $1,000-a-head fund-raiser in East Norwalk, Conn.

Although New York is not in play, it was hard to tell by the effort that both Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush brought to their two speeches, a combination of jokes, skilled shots at their opponents, and even efforts to display their knowledge of New York politics.

''By the way: was it my imagination, or did Mayor Giuliani nod when I said, your excellency?'' Mr. Gore said, referring to his own salutation a moment earlier to the archbishop. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani dropped his head and smiled.

At another point, referring to his own debate performance, Mr. Gore said: ''Please accept my apologies for interrupting your meal. Since this is a special occasion, I wanted to mark it by getting all my interruptions out of the way before Governor Bush speaks.''

Mr. Bush did not appear that amused at many of Mr. Gore's jokes and, if the reaction of the audience was any guide, the Texas governor probably came across better at the dinner last night. He did, after poking fun at Mr. Gore for exaggeration and other political foibles, offer him the kind of compliments that politicians rarely give one another in public.

''Let me tell you a few things that I've learned about my opponent in this campaign,'' Mr. Bush said. "He's a man who clearly loves and respect his wife and family. Like me, he married up. I also learned that he is a person of energy, skill and determination. This year, Mr. Vice President, I can't wish you success, but I do wish you well.''